TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said during an interpellation session on Friday (Oct. 7) that while having enough weapons is crucial to Taiwan’s self-defense, claims that the U.S. is turning Taiwan into a “weapons depot” are not true.

During the morning interpellation session at the Legislative Yuan, Legislator Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) mentioned that U.S. President Joe Biden had said in an interview last month if there was an "unprecedented attack" across the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. military would defend Taiwan. He added that following Biden’s comments, The New York Times published an article on Wednesday (Oct. 5) titled, “U.S. aims to turn Taiwan into giant weapons depot.’  

Huang said, “This is the first time such language has been used. The article’s content also mentioned that even if the U.S. decides to send its forces, Taiwan must have enough arms to defend itself until help from the U.S. or other countries arrives.” He asked Su for the Executive Yuan’s stance on the issue and whether Taiwan is preparing for such a scenario.

Su replied, “As everyone knows, for a craftsman to excel at his work, he must first sharpen his tools. As such, for us to defend ourselves, we must also have various advanced weapons to increase our self-defense capabilities.” He added that in the past, when Taiwan sought to purchase weapons, it would have its requests denied.

Now, if Taiwan has the ability to self-purchase enough weapons or receive them from various parties to defend against China, whose aggression has been intensifying, Su said, “We believe it is very suitable, given the current reality.”

“However, the foreign media’s sensational headlines do not reflect the facts,” he added.